Happy 2019! It’s hard to believe another year has begun, and we’re super close to my 2-year blogiversary! If you would have asked me 2 years ago if I saw myself being able to come up with enough content to keep up a weekly blog, I would have thought you were crazy, but here we are! I hope you all have been enjoying them as much as I have with creating them for you.
I usually tend to get a little crafty for Christmas gifts for family and friends, which is why I don’t fulfill custom orders or have much available in my shop this time of the year. I started in September on some of the more time consuming gifts, but I still working on things the week before Christmas.
Since these are all handmade, I decided I wanted to dedicate a blog post to these pieces as their mediums vary greatly from needlefelting, to crochet, to resin charms, to polymer clay.
Hotel of Bees shawl
I created a blog post specifically for this crocheted Hotel of Bees shawl last year, so I’m just going to do a quick highlight. This was for my husband’s grandma because this part of this family does beekeeping. The pattern for this project is a paid one from Christina Hadderingh on Ravelry, and it is one of my favorite things I ever crocheted.
Leaves shawl
I didn’t want to make a duplicate shawl for my mother-in-law, but I couldn’t find anything quite on the same level as the Hotel of Bees shawl. I did find this leaves one though, another paid crochet pattern, by Ana D. on Ravelry. This was a very therapeutic pattern to work with because it’ repeats itself through the rows.
I definitely welcomed another opportunity to use the Scheepjes stonewashed yarn, and this purple was very pretty. The finished shawl feels really nice, and the leaf motif is subtle but lovely. This would be really pretty in a green or fall colors too!
Needlefelted snowman
My mom likes to display snowman and Santas for the holidays, so I thought it would be fun to create a needle felted snowman. This was a really fun kit from Bear Creek Felting on Etsy. I couldn’t find my needle felting kit from a few years ago either, so I loved that this shop offered kits both with the foundational needle and work pad, and without it for people who already have those items.
The kit itself was quite enjoyable. The shop provides everything you need to create the base snowman–you even get prefelted balls to needle felt the main body parts around so you don’t have to spend time creating a core or guessing how big you should make them. There was plenty of wool to create the pieces (I even have some leftover). The instructions were super detailed too!
The only part I struggled with was the arms—I could not pierce them all the way through the body like the instructions said, so I adjusted by folding the arms in half and creating the arms, anchoring them in about half an inch or so (that was as far as I could get them in), and securing them with some multisurface glue. If I had a tool to help get this hole started, I think I could have pierced through the body.
The shop also has an option to purchase an add-on so you can create the little scarf, but I decided to knit my own hat and scarf using some leftover yarn from the Hotel of Bees shawl. I think these colors complimented the snowman so nicely! My hat became a little hipstery, but it’s still fun :).
UV resin charms
I got the idea later in the game to create super cute Christmas charms to decorate all of our gifts this year. I thought they would make for some pretty embellishments since my wrapping game is not very strong.
The bezels are from Sophie and Toffee. I created them in batches mostly based on colors I was going to use for them. I decided to keep them fairly simple—they are pretty much solid colors with no extra embellishments like rhinestones or other inclusions. I added painted details for a few of them to help add a little character.
Overall, I thought they looked super pretty on wrapped up on the packages.
2018 dragon ornament
For the third year in a row, I made a little dragon ornament. You can see a little more about my current process in last year’s dragon ornament blog post. I deviated from my ornament idea list to do something a little less traditional. I have not used my color changing powders very much, and I thought this would be a great place to try something a little extra fun.
I chose to add one of my powders to a black base to create a color shifting dragon. This is a chameleon powder from Solar Color Dust, and it shifts from blue to purple to red. The blue is most noticeable, followed by the purple, and I don’t see much of the red, but it looks really pretty!
I decided to really contrast the color of the powders, and I thought a metallic clay would bring in a touch of that more traditional Christmas feel, so the accents on this ornament are silver.
And those are the creations from Christmas 2018! I look forward to this time of year when I can play with some other mediums.